


A Terrible, Swift Sword

by Astronomical_Aphrodite



Series: Everything Stays [4]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Molly O’Shea Lives, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Arthur, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 06:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astronomical_Aphrodite/pseuds/Astronomical_Aphrodite
Summary: Soon after arriving at Beaver’s Hollow, Arthur finds Molly.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Molly O'Shea
Series: Everything Stays [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643872
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	A Terrible, Swift Sword

Arthur had only meant to take a piss — instead, he found Molly crying in the bushes, a bottle of fine brandy clutched in her hand. Her dress was dirtied and ruffled, her hair tangled, and he could see bruises and abrasions encircling her delicate, pale wrists. It looked like she’d been there awhile, empty bottles around her feet, and her face was flushed a bright red from alcohol.

Quietly, he approached her, sitting next to her on the ground. She glanced at him, but continued drinking, rubbing harshly at her wet cheeks. “I’ve been lookin’ for ya’ for a few days, now,” Arthur said tentatively, and the corners of her lips twitched upwards.

“Didn’t think nobody noticed I was gone,” Molly said weakly. Her delicate fingers curled in her skirts, twisting the fabric as she set the bottle down next to her. “Either that,” she continued, “or that nobody cared.”

“Oh, we did,” he assured her.

Molly nodded, and when Arthur extended an arm, she accepted his offer and leaned up against his side, pressing her face into his bony shoulder as he wrapped an arm around her waist. She curled up close to him, and he held her as she sniffled and cried. “They caught me,” Molly admitted, “the Pinkertons.”

“Did ya’ tell them anything?” Arthur asked, pulse quickening.

He was afraid she’d say that she did, but Molly had always been tough. “I didn’t,” Molly said, shaking her head as her red curls bounced, “they sweated me, but I didn’t answer their questions. Not about Dutch, or the rest of the us.”

“Figured ya’ didn’t,” Arthur exhaled, hands unclenching as his shoulders relaxed. If Molly had ratted them out, he knew that Ms Grimshaw and Dutch would’ve been pissed, alongside the others. Maybe Hosea and him could’ve persuaded them to keep her alive, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to stay with them. “Let’s go get ya’ cleaned up,” he suggested, standing and pulling her to her feet.

Arthur took her towards Dutch’s tent — the man was out hunting with Micah, and likely wouldn’t arrive back at camp until the sun was setting, maybe even until the next day. Settling her down on the bed, he closed the flaps so that they had privacy, considering that the camp was full of prying eyes and Molly didn’t need anybody getting on her case about where she’s been. He was sure somebody would harass him about taking Molly into Dutch’s tent alone and closing the flaps, but he’d deal with that when it happened.

Rummaging through the drawers while Molly watched, when Arthur found a comb, he pulled it out, sitting next to her on the mattress. He took her hair in his hands and started brushing through it, while the woman closed her eyes, hands stilling on her lap. The ratty nest of curls came untangled as he dragged the teeth of the comb through them, hooking on knots and tangles before pulling through neatly. He pinched it near the root to keep from hurting her.

“You wanna’ talk about it?” Arthur asked gruffly, the question choked off by a coughing fit.

“Not particularly,” she slurred, the alcohol almost enough to make her incomprehensible. When he finished with her hair, he let it fall into loose ringlets on her back. They practically glowed from the weak light shining through the fabric of the tent, alongside her pale skin.

“If you change your mind,” Arthur said wearily, “you know I’ll listen. Now let’s get ya’ out of those rags.”

“ _Yes,_ please,” she said, clasping his knee.

After she expressed her consent, he grabbed the laces on the back of her dress, helping her out of her clothes and leaving her in her undergarments. He could see bruises purpling her upper arms and ribs, marks on her hips that looked like they came from fingers, and the injuries made him want to spill Pinkerton blood all over the goddamn streets.

Standing up, he grabbed a washcloth and brought it to the clean bucket of water that sat at their bedside. Wetting the fabric, he started wiping the dirt from her face and her arms. Gradually, she started looking like herself again, pale skin clean and free of blemishes besides the bruises while her red hair fell in ringlets across her back and shoulders. It had been unnerving, seeing her in such a messy condition, and as he helped her into a new dress without the corset she usually wore, he hoped that it made her feel more comfortable.

Together, they laid down on Dutch’s bed, her head in the muscular crook of his arm, and as he coughed raggedly into his elbow, he tried to pretend that it was a happier time and he wasn’t dying from an incurable disease. Quietly, she sipped at another bottle of brandy, and he tried to make his nausea subside.

“Did Dutch even ask after me?” She asked after awhile.

“No,” Arthur answered, because he wasn’t about to lie to her. She deserved better than that.

Humming, Molly took another swing of the liquid, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing it down. “I figured as much,” she said plainly, dropping the bottle onto the ground next to the bed. Fingers lacing on her stomach, she had finally calmed down from her earlier distress, although Arthur knew it was because she was numbed by the alcohol in her body. “Suppose I just hoped he would send someone to save me,” she confessed, “although I should’ve known he wouldn’t bother. Dutch didn’t even search for you when you were missing, and you’re his goddamn golden boy.”

It was true, but Arthur wished that it wasn’t. He hoped that there was still some of the old Dutch in there, the man who despised the fool’s game of revenge and was revolted and reviled by the thought of leaving someone behind, but Arthur knew he’d been consumed by his grief and his greed. If it had just been the two of them, Arthur might’ve simply left, but there were so many people he needed to protect. Bill, Javier, Micah — they were likely beyond saving. Maybe even John and Sean, too, although John was married now and Sean had Karen. But the others, he had to ensure they were protected.

“We just need to have faith,” he insisted numbly, but Molly shook her head.

“Faith is for those who have nothing else,” she slurred bitterly. He thought back to his mother when she was dying, how she always promised him that things would get better, but they never did. The Reverend praying for Jenny and Davey to live, and for Mac to come home safely, and when Arthur was so septic from his shoulder wound that the others were certain he’d die. Dutch, with increasingly desperate schemes and his insistence that everything would get easier soon, soon, but never soon enough. “It’s for when there’s nothing we can do ourselves, so we have to trust that someone else will make things better.”

“Nothin’ much we can do, Molly,” Arthur confessed. There was only blindly following Dutch’s plans, as increasingly awful as they were, and hope for the best. “We’ve been making do as well as we can,” he continued, “but it seems like we’ll just keep coming up short until we finally either get that Blackwater money, which is unlikely, or manage to pull off a good heist.”

“A good heist,” she scoffed, “like that’s gonna’ happen.”

“It could,” Arthur said with a shrug. The words were bitter in his mouth. “We can’t know for certain.”

“Things are almost over,” her fingers curled in his lapel, “I can feel it.”

“Then _please,_ ” he begged, knowing she likely wouldn’t remember later the desperation in his voice, “just get out of here while you can.”

Molly fell asleep eventually, nodding off in his arms, and he thought about the lives they’d lived up until that point. Always running, never staying in one place for too long, constantly filled with that exhausted dread that the next day will be their last. It was easy to pretend everything would be okay, but what happened to him, what happened to Molly — it was proof that they’d never be able to settle down, not until they were in their graves.

They could move to the South Atlantic, head west until they reached the ocean and sail across it to Tahiti, or even journey into Canada, as awful and cold as that sounded. But no matter what, they would always be watching their backs, waiting for a lawman or bounty hunter or detective to come chase them down and bring them to the nooses that waited for them.

Arthur’s noose was likely less literal. He wouldn’t go down unless at the end of a barrel, or until his lungs gave out.

And that scared him more than anything — the fact that even if he didn’t meet a violent end, his death was still steadily approaching, entirely unavoidable, and completely deserved.

He’d essentially murdered Thomas Downes over a debt that seemed small in the grand scheme of things, and the price he’d paid was that he’d likely die before he could reach his thirty-sixth birthday. Hopefully John and the others would live to be older than he ever would, but if he died before they managed to settle down, then he feared what would happen when he was unable to protect them. That was the other issue — that he’d likely never get to know if they all would make it out safe.

It almost made him wish he’d followed Lenny’s suggestion and headed west, but that was a selfish thought that made his cheeks burn with shame. He _deserved_ to suffer — the others didn’t, and he knew that without him, they’d be that much more at risk.

Arthur sat with her until eventually Dutch walked in, a frown twisting his lips at seeing Arthur sitting at Molly’s bedside, and he quickly stood up, moving towards the flaps of the tent before he could say a word. It wasn’t as if Dutch needed another reason to distrust him, and he was sure that if Micah had walked in, he would’ve started telling Dutch all about how Arthur was trying to steal his woman, as if women could belong to anyone. “Found her in the woods,” he explained, “got picked up by the Pinkertons sometime when we were in Lakay.”

Dutch’s face paled in horror. “Did she tell them anything?” He asked, voice strained.

“No,” Arthur said, clipped.

“Are we certain?” Dutch’s eyes had taken a panicked, almost _manic_ sheen, brow furrowed as he grabbed Arthur’s shoulder. Some part of him wanted to shove the hand away, but this was Dutch, the man who had practically raised him — he craved his touch and approval like a child would crave their mother’s. “We cant be taking _chances_ here, Arthur—“

“She _didn’t,_ Dutch,” Arthur reiterated. The line of Dutch’s shoulders straightened out, the fine wrinkles on his face smoothing. He may be losing himself, but he still trusted Arthur’s word. “She didn’t tell them anything.”

“Good,” Dutch breathed as Arthur walked through the tent flaps, “good.”

His eyes caught Micah’s across the camp where he was brushing down his horse, and the man smirked — a churning feeling started up in Arthur’s gut, although he wrote it off as the consumption. He couldn’t be doubting, not when the twenty of them depended on him.

There were Sean and Karen, curled up together with his head pressed against her collarbone and her fingers combing through Sean’s red hair, and the lack of a bottle suggested they were at least mostly sober. John sat with Jack in their tent, Cain pressed against his hip, and he read with him that storybook Arthur had found for him, mouth moving as he pointed at the words. Mary-Beth was helping Kieran with his reading, and the man smiled at him when their eyes met. Hosea talked in hushed voices with Lenny and Javier, Pearson butchered meat for the stew, and the other girls stitched closed holes in clothes by their tent.

Arthur was doomed to die, but none of _them_ had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur/Molly is my third favorite Arthur ship, right after Arthur/Kieran and Arthur/Javier, and so maybe I’ll write something romantic for them eventually. For now, check me out at [More Ghosts Than People](https://wannabecowpoke.tumblr.com/), my new Tumblr blog for RDR2. Feel free to send me requests and asks!


End file.
